Artificial Christmas tree piquets or tree boughs can be formed, for example, by a machine such as that shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,330,603 or 3,774,653 in the name of Joseph T. Geraldi as inventor. By reference to those patents, it will be seen that the piquets are formed by passing two or more wires over wire guides as they are pulled and twisted together by a rotating spiral tube, while a picker wheel inserts plastic needles in-between them. The lengths of twisted wires are then cut to predetermined sizes to make branches or boughs for artificial Christmas trees.
The piquets emerge from the aforesaid machine on a conveyor with their long axes extending parallel to the direction of movement of the conveyor. The ends of the piquets, as formed, are circular in configuration; whereas the branches or boughs of a living pine tree taper to a point. Accordingly, after the piquets emerge from the machine on which they are made, they must be placed on a second conveyor, which moves at right angles to the first, such that their opposite ends can be passed between steam-heated brushes which form a more or less tapered configuration at their ends.
In the past, the piquets on the first conveyor had to be mutually transferred to the second conveyor, a process which was tedious for workers and costly.